Special Cargo
by DeBrabant
Summary: A ship brings some 'special cargo' for Jack which will change the lives of both Emilia and Jack forever...
1. Default Chapter

Special Cargo  
by Danii  
Summary: When a certain unexpected import comes to Pulau Pulau, it will change the lives of two agents forever.  
Disclaimer: I don't own Jack, Emelia, or anyone else from the show 'Jack of All Trades'. They belong to Renaissance Pictures (even if they tossed then away carelessly). However, a few people are mine (not that I'll make an issue of it).  
Distribution: TAKE! PLEASE!!! Just tell me where it is...  
Feedback/Review: Please?  
NOTE: This is my first fic in this fandom, however, I am a long time BC fan. I loved him as Auto, Ash, and others, and I've written fic with those two, so hopefully this will work out okay if not stellar.   
Rating: PG-PG13  
  
And now:  
  
There are certain senses which a human being needs to survive in the real world, and Jack Stiles, living the life that he did, had honed these senses to near perfection.  
  
So when he woke up with an odd queesy feeling in the pit of his stomach, he knew that the day was going to be interesting. And not in the good way, if his own personal version of luck had anything to do with it. But he did need to get up (it being past 4 o'clock in the afternoon and all), and there was nothing he could do about it, so with a grunt and a rather sleepy groan, Jack got out of bed.  
  
He got dressed quickly in his breeches and coat, then made his way down to the kitchen to take in a little bit of coffee. God, but he loved that soupy brown stuff like nobody's business. He loved coffee almost as much as he loved mini-skirts. Almost, but not quite.  
  
Luckily, Emilia didn't catch him getting up this late. As much as he loved his fiery blonde boss at times, she could be a real stickler for some things.   
  
"I mean," he grumbled as he sucked down the revitalizing liquid, "If I wanted to get up like a normal person, I wouldn't've become a spy, now would I?"  
  
"Yes, well," came a famliar female voice from behind him with a far too familiar tone, "You are supposed to APPEAR to be a normal person, as part of being a spy, aren't you?"  
  
He didn't even argue. "Morning, Em."  
  
"Good AFTERNOON, Jack..." replied Emilia as she made her way to where Jack was sitting, standing just in front of him, "Nice to see that your recent bout of drinking and such has not made you bed-ridden or dead, as the cause sometimes seems."  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine," he admitted, sipping down more of the coffee, "Just a little tired."  
  
She 'harumphed', a noise that the British agent had made into art.  
  
"Well," Emilia continued, "That's just wonderful then, because we have been invited to dinner at the Governer's mansion today, and I would hate to have to tell him that my attache could not attend due to his monstrous hangover..."  
  
"Wonderful..." Jack grumbled, "I have to deal with that pompous poof and his ever-so-suspicious cap-it-tan on a day like this..."  
  
Emilia's eyebrow rose.  
  
"And just what kind of day is it?" she asked, half sarcasm and half honest curiousity, "Some sort of American holiday where you eat more than an entire family has the right to and then fall asleep? Or is this one where you commemorate your veterans by doing absolutely nothing all day? Please, Jack, do tell me just what kind of day it is that you can't perform a very easy part of your job..."  
  
"I can do my job, Emilia..." the American replied with a slight glare, "Any day, no matter what. I may not act like you do, or live the way you do, but I do my job the best way I can, and I do it well, okay sister? And stop making fun of my holidays...I mean, you Brits shouldn't talk, cause, like...what the hell's Boxing Day?"  
  
Immediately, that fire lit in her eyes. "I'll have you know, Mr. Stiles, that Boxing Day commemorates-"  
  
"It was rhetorical, Em..." Jack interrupted, not wanting to hear the three hour lecture on what the holiday was and the various wonders it held. He admired Emilia's patriotism, but he didn't like the speeches that occasionally came with it.  
  
"Oh," she recovered. Then she got down to business, "Which reminds me. You and I should head down to the docks and check up on our shipments. The 'Anita Marie' came in today, but I've not had a chance to check up on what it's brought in due to your late awakening."  
  
"What does my 'late awakening' have to do with anything?" he asked as he finished his coffee, "you coulda gone down and checked things."  
  
"Hah. You forget, Jack, that YOU are my attache, and so I would never do such things without your help...at least not if I didn't wish to appear strange."   
  
"Oh," he remembered, "Yeah."  
  
"Yes, indeed," Emilia stressed, grabbing his hand out of his pocket, "Now come along and let's see what Captain Phillips has brought us today."  
  
And Jack, like always, allowed her to drag him from his seat, out the door, and towards the docks.  
  
It didn't take long to get there, Pulau Pulau being a rather small island and their home being quite close due to Emilia's shipping business. And when they got there, they found Captain Phillips standing on the dock in front of his ship while his workers unpacked the various imports that the Europeans of the island needed for their daily lives. When he saw them, he let out a greeting immediately.  
  
"Why, Mr. Stiles and Mrs. Rothchild!" he shouted merrily, waving as the two he'd addressed walked up to where he stood, "How nice to see you this afternoon."  
  
"And the same to you, Captain Phillips," Emilia responded at once in a sweet voice. She had always like Phillips. He might not bath regularly, or have the most refined sensabilities, but he was always on time and his cargo was there more often then it wasn't, a serious plus.  
  
"Hi, Tom." Jack said jovially a moment later, greeting the capain by first name. Phillips was also a favorite of Jack's because during his leave, the two often drunk together, during which the captain usually told some interesting stories from one brothel or another in Jamaica or the Americas.  
  
"Aye," the captain responded. "Your packages are being taken to your house as we speak, and I've already taken the items that you told me to take into the boat for export."  
  
"Very good, Captain." Emilia said with a smile.  
  
"However," the seaman continued with a rather strange smile, "I have two special packages for you, Mr. Stiles..."  
  
"Special packages?" Jack asked, wondering just what kind of insane item the President could have sent him. Or anyone else.  
  
"Aye," the captain confirmed, "The first is a letter from an woman, which I have kept safely with me the entire voyage."  
  
"From a woman?" the American questioned, now VERY interested in just what the other package could be. "Lemme see..."  
  
So the captain dug into his belt and pulled out a rather bent-up letter and handed it to Jack, who took it from his hand like a starving man offered a stake.  
  
"Who could it be from, Jack?" Emilia asked, looking over his shoulder.  
  
Immediately, that shoulder slumped as he saw just who had sent the letter.  
  
"My sister..." the agent said, sounding considerably deflated, "It's from my sister."  
  
"Well, then..." she urged, "Read it already..."  
  
"'Dear Jacky-'"  
  
"Jacky?"  
  
He just looked at her, then went back to the letter.  
  
"'How are things on that little island of yours? Things here in America are fine, as they always are. Andrew has finally gotten married (an idea you should get into your head sometime soon before Mother and Father strap you to a wagon and force you) and he seems happy with his new wife. They are already expecting a child. I include this information because I am unaware of just how much you are unaware of. You never seem to write to me or the rest of the family, you know. And we do miss you dearly. However, that is not truly the point of this letter.  
  
"'I am writing to let you know that-'"  
  
However, Jack was unable to finish his reading because as the last word left his lips, a blur of lace, ribbons, and green dress flew at him and gripped him around the chest in a hold as tight as a vise. Before looking down, Jack looked to the captain with many questions on his face.  
  
"And that's your second package..." the captain told him with a grin almost as wide as a banana.  
  
Carefully, as if dreading the creature who was even now squeezing him tighter, Jack looked down to see a bright face with gleaming brown eyes, a button nose, and pink little lips that were curved in a wide smile, all framed in black curly hair.   
  
"Lexi?" The stunned agent asked carefully.  
  
"Oh, Uncle Jack, it's so good to see you! And I'm so happy you recognize me!" the teenager that still clung to his body exclaimed cheerily in a light soprano voice.  
  
"Lexi?"  
  
"Oh, Uncle, I go by Alexandra now..." she told him playfully, "Something you should know since I'll be staying here for a while..."  
  
"For a-"  
  
"A couple of months..." the young girl continued, "Didn't Mother let you know?"  
  
"A couple-"   
  
And then Jack's entire mental switchboard shut down due to the amazing amount of different messages that it was trying to get done; in short, he discovered that you can only say one thing with one mouth, and that trying any more than that doesn't work. And so, the American agent known as Jack Stiles slipped between those arms and dropped onto the dock, totally out for the count.  
  
"Uncle?" 


	2. Unexpected Information

The young girl stared down at her fallen relative with an expression that was equal parts confusion and worry. Then those eyes that were so similar to the eyes that Emilia saw everyday turned to her with yet another expression. One of curiosity.  
  
"Who're you?" the young Stiles asked with a raise of her delicate eyebrows, "Are you one of my Uncle's collegues?"  
  
It took a moment for Emilia to respond, she being almost as shocked as her partner had been, but after a moment, the Englishwoman nodded her head.  
  
"Yes," she said at last, having finally recovered from both the young woman's arrival and Jack's reaction to said arrival, "Mr. Stiles works for me as my attache. He helps with my shipping business..."  
  
"Well then," Alexandra replied quickly as she grabbed her uncle's arms, "You can help me carry him back to your house, wherever that is..."  
  
Still in a mild state of shock, Emilia took a few moments to do as the young woman said. It took even longer to realize that she'd just obeyed a girl who couldn't be more than fifteen, if she was any judge. However, considering that the young woman was a relative of one Jack Stiles, it wasn't nearly as surprising as it really should have been.  
  
So one rather shocked, and the other rather...gruff, they carried Jack all the way back to the house, Emilia leading the way while she held her partner's legs. And since it was a short trip, they didn't drop him more than twice.  
  
The two of them made it up the stairs without incident (though Emilia was wondering if perhaps letting his head drop on the steps would teach him a thing or two about fainting and leaving two other people to carry him back), then placed him in his bed. They recovered from the exertion, then looked to one another.  
  
"Alexandra Stiles-Harthford, exceedingly pleased to meet you..." the younger woman said cheerily, holding out her hand which was still covered in a traveling glove.  
  
Emilia stared at the hand for a moment, amazed at the girl's strange combination of rather British sensabilities and American...well, the agent didn't really have any exact word (a polite one) for the quality that both Jack and Alexandra seemed to have in spades, but it was a certain gruff practicality that could either be very helpful, or could change into bothersome obstenency. But finally, she put out her own hand and shook, which made a smile break out on the young face before her.  
  
"Emilia Rothchild," she introduced herself, "Very pleased to meet you."  
  
However, after the two of them finished their introductions, both pairs of eyes turned to the figure on the bed, who, in typical fashion, began to mutter nonsense.  
  
"Oh...Sheila..." he said in something between a moan and a grumble, "Yeah, give me some sugar...oh yeah..."  
  
Alexandra pointed down at her uncle. "Does he still do this every night?"   
  
"Still?" Emilia asked with a raise of her eyebrow.  
  
To which the younger woman of the two let out a soft laugh.   
  
"Yeah, still..." she explained with a wide grin as her eyes took on that dreamy expression of one taking a mental trip to the past, "Sometimes, when I was scared at night as a child, I'd tip-toe into his room and slide into his bed for the night. He never minded me...I was always his favorite. But the one down-side to all of this was being treated to his silly mumblings in the morning when he was supposed to get up."  
  
"So," Emilia asked as she took a seat on one of the chairs that were in the room, "You were very close to Jack?"  
  
Alexandra laughed. "Oh, yeah, real close. I was like a duckling on his tail, constantly following him to work all the time, asking him all sorts of childish questions that no adult really wants to answer."  
  
"My Heavens!" the British agent cried out in horror, "He let a small child come to work with him!? How completely idiotic! You could have been hurt...or worse, killed!"  
  
The American stared at the woman before her for a moment with an odd expression on her youthful face. Then, in a rather confused-sounding tone, she asked.  
  
"What on earth are you talking about?"  
  
"Well," Emilia stumbled, knowing that the previous comment had given away too much to someone who might not have known about her partner's actual profession, "It's just that, working as the attache to a big business, you could have been trampled or some such-"  
  
"Attache?" she asked with a grin, "Don't know what he did before all of this spying business? And yes, Mrs. Rothchild, I do know what my uncle now does for a living, even if my family doesn't exactly approve of it."  
  
Emilia was shocked. Dear God, didn't that man understand what the words 'SECRET agent' meant? Telling a child such information? Then again, her own mind whispered slyly, you weren't exactly all that inconspicuious. However, she shut herself up quickly as she realized that the young lady had continued to talk.  
  
"-sure you know, my uncle was in a very different business when I was younger, and despite the horrible reputation for cruelty they seem to garner, lawyers are not, in general, that horrible of a bunch."   
  
"Lawyers?" the agent asked in complete confusion. What on earth could her partner, one of the most roguish individuals she'd ever met, have to do with lawyers, other than perhaps being screamed at by them? Just what HAD Jack Stiles, who was currently muttering about a 'comet' and a 'daisy' like some drunken barman, done before his work for his country? It made her feel rather silly that she hadn't throughly read through the information she'd been given on her partner, but Emilia hadn't expected any surprises from such an upfront gentleman like Jack.  
  
"Yes." Alexandra answered with a nod as she began to realize just how little this woman knew her uncle, "He was a rather celebrated lawyer in Boston before he gave it all up for the life of a spy. I mean, I'm sure even you have heard the name of Mr. Jonathon Stiles? The lawyer who-"  
  
Emilia nearly fainted to the floor, and it was only her training and iron will which kept her from doing just that. To think that...it couldn't be that...he couldn't...he wasn't...it couldn't...  
  
"You mean he's-"  
  
"Yes," Alexandra repeated again. But this time, there was a noticeable chill in the young woman's voice, "He is. Though I'm quite sure that you never even considered the possibilty that he COULD be. I'm assuming you swallowed his act hook, line, and sinker."  
  
"His...act?" Emilia asked, still in shock.   
  
"Yeah, his act..." the young woman said. Now the chill was in her eyes as well. "That 'I'm-a-big-lug-with-no-brain' act that he plays like a pro. I mean, I figured that the Frenchies would buy it and totally underestimate him. It's part of the reason I decided to visit. I wanted to see his work up close since I intend to go into the business myself. However, I never thought that-"  
  
"That his own partner would be so completely oblivious to his backround..." Emilia filled in, her voice mostly shame and embarrassement.  
  
"Indeed." Alexandra replied, her tone a little more warm. Obviously, she had heard the emotions in the agent's voice and figured out that the Brit was very sorry for her mistake of thinking Uncle Jack an idiot. And to her mind, the blonde deserved it.  
  
"But-"  
  
"Shhhh..." the younger girl hushed her, "He's waking up."  
  
"Oh." Emilia said lamely.  
  
Immediately, those brown eyes focused on her own, brown eyes that held a strange sort of fire that Emilia knew from her partner as being totally instopable.  
  
"Don't say anything, okay?" Alexandra asked, suddenly seeming much younger. Dear God, but the girl had been so...in charge a moment before, a position that Emilia usually thought of as her own. But somehow, this teenager had pulled this spot from her with a little information and a very well-used set of facial expressions.  
  
"What?" Emilia asked, forgetting what the girl had said during her thoughts.  
  
"I said not to say anything about what I told you, okay?" she repeated, "I mean, I don't want it to affect anything, and I know that Uncle would be rather upset with me should he find that I told you."  
  
The elder woman in the room looked at her for a moment, then nodded her head.  
  
"Then I'll be going..." Alexandra said quickly as she began to leave the room, "Must unpack and such. Later."  
  
And then the girl was out the door and gone, leaving Emilia with a groggy and confused Jack Stiles who was even now coming out of his faint, still muttering nonsense. However, after a minute, he began to make sense.  
  
"Em?" he asked tiredly.  
  
"Yes, Jack."  
  
"Did what I think happened...happen?" he asked unsurely.  
  
And all she did was nod, not trusting herself to find any other words.  
##  
Meanwhile, in the room that she had picked out to be her own for the two months she intended to stay on the island, Alexandra was unpacking her few possessions from the case she had had with her the entire trip. She was also very close to having a spaz attack.  
  
"What on earth was I thinking?" she asked herself nervously, that strangely in-charge young woman entirely lost in the frantic wreak that was now one Miss Alexandra Stiles-Harthford.  
  
"I can't believe I did that. How did I do that? I can't do that!" she berated herself, all the while stuffing her clothing into the various spots, "I just...I got smart with Emilia Rothchild, one of the most experienced agents in the British Intelligence! And I told her about Uncle Jack. And I told her...Oh god, what was I thinking! I'm a bloody twit, not a general!"  
  
And as these words sunk into her brain, she realized with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was a long way from home, and probably in the proverbial stew-pot. But there was a bright side.  
  
"Well, at least she took it well enough. This might actually work. I mean, from what Mother told me, I was thinking I'd have to lock the two of them into a room till they killed each other or went at it like rabbits."   



End file.
